The police department of Lansing, Michigan, has apologized after a white police officer handcuffed a Black child outside his home in what the agency called an “unfortunate case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’”.
The department posted the apology on Facebook after cellphone video circulated on social media showing the officer leading the boy – whose hands were cuffed behind his back – through the parking lot of an apartment complex on Thursday. The officer had been searching for a suspect in a string of car thefts when he spotted the child.
The boy was identified as 12-year-old Tashawn Bernard during a Friday news conference held by his family and their lawyers. Tashawn was taking trash out to the garbage bin when he was approached by an officer who had his “gun unholstered and was holding it in front of him”, according to a lawyer representing the family.
About three minutes into the video of the encounter, an officer removed the handcuffs and spoke with Tashawn for about 30 seconds. Tashawn was then allowed to join his father on the sidewalk.
Michael Bernard, Tashawn’s father, said he could sense something was wrong when his son was taking longer than usual to bring out the trash. When he went outside, he said, his son “had cuffs on and police were standing around him”.
The Bernard family’s lawyers, Ayanna and Rico Neal, said Tashawn is “traumatized” so much that he “doesn’t not want to go outside any more”.
Police said they wanted to “provide some background information on this unfortunate misunderstanding” in one of two statements released on Friday on Facebook.
A witness had described the suspect’s outfit before a person who matched the description ran from an officer into an apartment complex, police said. Another officer saw the child in “a very similar outfit”, stopped him and released him when the officer realized he was not the suspect, police said.
Lansing’s police chief, Ellery Sosebee, said in a second statement on Friday that he reviewed the case and concluded the officer was respectful and professional during the child’s temporary detention. Nonetheless, he said: “We understand that something like this has an impact on all parties involved. As the chief of police, I want to apologize that this incident had such an effect on this young man and his family.”
Sosebee also asked “the community to consider all the facts of the situation before making a judgment”.
Lawyers for the Bernard family say they have not received any additional details from police other than what was shared on social media. The family is “exploring all legal options”, including “the possibility of filing a lawsuit”, lawyers said.
In Kenosha, Wisconsin, police have launched an internal investigation after another video posted to social media appears to show one of their officers on 20 July punching a Black man the officer mistakenly thought was involved in a hit-and-run crash.
Police said witnesses told them two men and a woman carrying a child fled toward an Applebee’s restaurant. A restaurant employee directed officers toward a man holding a baby. Police then discovered the people responsible for the crash hiding in the restaurant’s bathroom.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
